SECTION XII. Responsibility for Carriage beyond Company's Road. 1. English rule to hold first company liable to the end of the route. and return of goods before reasonable time. 2. This rule not followed in the American 6. Carriers only responsible for safe carriage * § 162. 1. The disposition of the English courts, since the establishment of railways, has seemed to be to regard parties who receive goods, and book them for a certain destination, as carriers throughout the entire route. Since the first case which assumed this position,2 there has not been manifested any disposition to recede from it. And the English courts have extended the same rule to carriers in England, in the direction of Scotland, where the goods are received and booked for points beyond the limits of England.* And this rule has been carried so far in the English courts that even where the loss is shown to have occurred upon one of the subsequent roads in the route, it is held that the contract is exclusively with the first company, and that there is no right of action in favor of the owner against any of the subsequent companies on the route.5 The same rule is adopted in regard to passenger baggage.6 It seems to us, that by reason of the pressure of two questions in the case last named, the House of Lords, after great labor and 1 1 Hodges on Railways, 615. Muschamp v. Lancaster & Preston Railw. Co., 8 M. & W. 421. 3 Watson v. Ambergate, Not. & Boston Railw., 3 Eng. L. & Eq. 497; Scotthorn v. South Staffordshire Railw., 18 Eng. L. & Eq. 553; Wilson v. York, N. & B. Railw., 18 Eng. L. & Eq. 557. * Crouch v. London & N. W. Railw., 25 Eng. L. & Eq. 287. 5 Bristol & Exeter Railw. v. Collins, 7 Ho. Lds. Cas. 194; s. c. 5 Jur. N. S. 1367. See post, n. 8. • Ante, § 155, n. 3. pains, have really escaped from a threatening dilemma by falling into more difficulty and doubt, not to say confusion and absurdity, than either of the alternatives of the original dilemma presented. There was no difficulty in saying that an exemption from responsibility for loss by fire, contained in a receipt-note given by the first company, by fair construction extended to the entire route, although contained only in the written contract with the first company. But the Court of Queen's Bench and the Exchequer Chamber differed upon this point. There would have been more reason in saying, as the American courts do, that the first company is not responsible for the miscarriage of the other companies. But the court of last resort in England have now put the crowning climax upon this rule, by saying that subsequent companies are not responsible as carriers to the owner of the goods. This is a rule which some of the learned judges dissent from, and which others adopt upon the ground of the written contract in this case; and which we should expect would be ultimately abandoned, as founded upon no fair principle of reason or justice. But if the law of England is altered in this respect, it must be by statute, as the House of Lords will not hear argument upon a point once determined in that court. The difficulty seems to have arisen out of the extreme views adopted there in Muschamp v. Lancaster & Preston Railway Company.7 And in a later case, where oxen were sent from the Crown Arms station on the Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway to Birmingham, that company's line extending to Shrewsbury, and the defendant's from that to Birmingham, the plaintiff's drover signed a way-bill containing the following condition: "For the convenience of the owner the company will receive the charges payable to other companies for conveyance of the cattle over their line of railway, but the company will not be subject to liability for any loss, delay, default, or damage arising on such other railway." One sum was charged for the carriage, which was to be paid at Birmingham. The oxen were placed in trucks belonging to the defendants, and on the arrival of the train at Wolverhampton, on defendants' line, it was found that the bottom of one of the trucks was broken, and one of the oxen dead, ▾ Coxon v. Great Western Railw. Co., 5 H. & N. 274. and others injured. It was held that the contract was so exclusively with the Shrewsbury and Hereford Company for the entire journey that the defendants were not liable. 8 2. But this rule has been very seriously questioned in this country. The general view of the American courts upon this subject is, that in the absence of special contract, the rule laid down in the earlier English cases, that the carrier is only liable for the extent of his own route, and for the safe storage and delivery to the next carrier, is the more just and reasonable one, and this is the doctrine which seems likely to prevail in this country, although there is no doubt some argument to be drawn from convenience in favor of the English rule.9 * Garside v. Trent & Mersey Navigation Co., 4 T. R. 581. • Farmers' & Mechanics' Bank v. Champlain Transp. Co., 16 Vt. R. 52; 18 Vt. R. 131; 23 Vt. R. 186; Van Santvoord v. St. John, 6 Hill (N. Y.), 158; Hood v. New York & N. H. Railw., 22 Conn. R. 1; s. c. 22 Conn. R. 502 ; Nutting v. Conn. R. Railw., 1 Gray, R. 502; Jenneson v. Camden & Amb. Railw., Dist. Court Phil. 4 vol. Am. Law Reg. 234. Stroud, J., in this last case, reviews all the cases upon the subject, and concludes, that in this country the courts have held, that when goods are delivered to a carrier marked for a particular place, but unaccompanied by any other directions for their transportation and delivery, except such as might be inferred from the marks themselves, the carrier is only bound to transport and deliver them, according to the established usage of the business in which he is engaged, whether that usage were known to the other party or not. The learned judge, in delivering his opinion, said: "The only question is whether this receipt contained an undertaking by the defendants to carry the chest beyond the terminus of their line, or, rather, beyond the place named in the receipt, the 'office of the defendants, in New York.' "The language of the receipt is plain and positive, which we promise to deliver at our office in New York, upon payment of freight therefor at the rate of 26 1-4 cents per 100 lbs.' For what purpose the memorandum, 'to be shipped for Camden, Ohio, from New York,' was made, we are not called upon to determine. We do determine that it did not enlarge the defendant's promise, as set forth in the body of the instrument; that it does not import an agreement by the defendants, that they would transport the chest to Camden, Ohio, and then deliver it to the plaintiff, which is the allegation in the declaration. It was admitted by the plaintiff's counsel that the chest was safely carried to New York, that it had been put in the way of transportation to its destination, by delivery to a proper railway transportation company for that purpose, but what became of it afterwards could not be ascertained. Questions very similar to that which has here arisen, have occurred several times in England, and in some of our sister states. Muschamp v. The Lancaster & Preston Junction Railw. Company, 8 Mees. & Wels. 421, was the case of a * 3. There are many cases, where the American courts have held the carrier liable beyond the limits of his own route, upon parcel delivered at Lancaster, addressed to a place in Derbyshire, beyond the line of the Lancaster and Preston Railw. Baron Rolfe, before whom the cause was tried, told the jury, that a carrier who takes into his care a parcel directed to a particular place, and does not by positive agreement limit his responsibility to a part only of the distance, undertakes primâ facie to carry the parcel to its destination, and that the rule was not varied by the fact that that place was beyond the limits within which the carrier professed to carry. This ruling was sanctioned by the court in banc. "In a subsequent case, Watson v. The Ambergate, Nottingham, & Boston Railw. Company, 3 Eng. L. and Eq. 497, the decision in Muschamp y. The Lancaster, &c. was approved. "In this country the courts have held, that when goods are delivered to a carrier, marked for a particular place, but unaccompanied by any other directions for their transportation and delivery except such as might be inferred from the marks themselves, the carrier is only bound to transport and deliver them according to the established usage of the business in which he is engaged, whether that usage were known to the party from whom they were received or not. Van Santvoord v. St. John, 6 Hill (N. Y.), 157; Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank v. Champlain Transportation Co., 18 Vt. R. 140, and 23 Ib. 209. "In Nutting v. Connecticut River Railroad Co., 1 Gray, 502, a receipt was given of this description: Northampton, Mass., received of E. Nutting for transportation to New York, nine boxes planes, marked,' &c. Two of these boxes were lost between Springfield, Mass., and New Haven, Conn., being beyond the terminus of the defendants' road. No connection in business was shown to exist between the defendants and the proprietors of the connecting road, nor was pay taken for the transportation beyond Springfield, which was the terminus of the defendants' road. "The Supreme Court of Massachusetts held, that the true construction of this contract was, that the goods should be safely carried to the terminus of the defendants' road, and there delivered to the carriers on the connecting road, to be forwarded to their proper destination. This decision was made upon a case stated. Muschamp v. Lancaster & Preston Junction Railw., 8 M. & W. 421, was cited on behalf of the plaintiff, but, the court disapproved of that decision, and held that, to bind a company under the circumstances of this case, the burden was upon the plaintiff to show a special contract by the company to carry the goods beyond the terminus of its own railway. There is another case which was cited, on the argument before us, by the counsel of the defendant. In this it was decided by a divided conrt, that, where a passenger paid the fare to a point several miles beyond the terminus of the defendants' railroad, receiving from the conductor of the cars a ticket in this form: New Haven and Northampton Company - Conductor's Ticket Conductor's Ticket - New Haven to Collinsville by stage from Farmington,' that the company was not responsible for any injury sus the * ground of a special undertaking, either express or implied, but whether any such contract exists is regarded as a matter to be determined from all the facts and attending circumstances of the case, and will more generally be an inference for the jury than the court, unless it depends upon the effect of written stipulations, and even then will often be affected more or less by attending facts and circumstances.10 tained by the passenger on the stage road between Farmington and Collinsville. The case was tried twice. A new trial was granted after the first trial, on a ground corresponding with that taken in Nutting v. The Connecticut River Railroad Company, 1 Gray, 502; but, after the second trial, in which the verdict was, as it had been on the first, for the plaintiff, the court, in setting aside the second verdict, rested its opinion on the ground that the conductor had no authority to bind the company to carry beyond the limits of its railway, because the company itself could not make any such binding contract. Hood v. N. Y. & N. H. Railroad Co., 22 Conn. R. 1, 502. "The case before us does not require, in support of the conclusion to which we have come, the adoption of the rulings in any of the cases in our sister states which have been referred to. The nonsuit on the trial was placed distinctly upon the principle that the evidence did not support the declaration; that the allegata and probata did not agree. The declaration alleged that the goods were to be carried from Burlington, New Jersey, to Camden, Ohio; whereas the receipt was express, that they were to be delivered at the company's office at New York, and the charge of freight was to New York only, and not beyond." In the case of United States Express Company v. Rush, 24 Ind. R. 403, the plaintiffs in error received a package of money to be carried to a point beyond their route. They carried it to the point on their route nearest the point of destination, and delivered it to "Winslow's Express," the usual communication from that point to the place of destination, and the package was lost while in their custody. The plaintiffs' receipt for the package specified that they undertook to forward the package to the point nearest its destination reached by that company, and that they should be held liable as forwarders only. It was held, the plaintiffs might become liable as common carriers without compliance with the statute declaring express companies common carriers, but that having done all which their contract required they were not responsible further. Where a ticket, sold by a railway company to a point upon a connecting road, contained a printed stipulation that in selling the company acted as agent only for roads beyond the terminus of their road, and assumed no responsibility therefor, the company is not liable to a passenger for the loss of baggage not occurring upon the line of their own road. Penn. Cent. Railw. v. Schwarzenberger, 45 Penn. St. 208. See also Hunt v. N. Y. & E. Railw., 1 Hilton, 228; Dillon v. Same, Id. 231. 10 Weed v. Sar. & Sch. Railw., 19 Wend. 534; Bennett v. Filyaw, 1 Flor. |